Category: Education

Department for Communities/flickr/Creative Commons By Dr. Peter Worley / 03.03.2016 CEO, The Philosophy Foundation President, SOPHIA Visiting Research Associate, King’s College London ‘Would anyone like to travel through time?’ I ask my audience. More than half raise their hands. Using a random-selection app on my phone I pick a ‘time traveller’. I explain that she[…]

Vincent of Beauvais (1190 – 1264?) was a French scholar, encyclopedist and Dominican Friar. / Public Domain Analyzing political education in the late Middle Ages, centring on the Latin work Tractatus de morali principis institutione, written in 1263 by the Dominican Vincent of Beauvais to provide guidance for princes on political affairs. By Dr. Francisco[…]

Of Education is Milton’s contribution to contemporary debate about methods of education. By Dr. Thomas H. Luxon Professor of English Dartmouth College Milton first published Of Education in 1644 as a rather informal looking, eight-page pamphlet without a title page, date, or publisher’s name. The tract was reprinted in 1673 as part of the second edition of Milton’s[…]

The big, new ideas of high medieval academia were Aristotle’s. By Dr. Hans Peter Broedel Graduate Director, Associate Professor of History University of North Dakota The Church reform of the high middle ages was a movement of the highest significance to European culture and society. From its beginnings as an effort to free monasteries from[…]

When examining the historical development of society, perhaps the most determining factor is education. By Abigail E. DeHart Grand Valley State University When examining the historical development of society, perhaps the most determining factor is education. Education has a symbiotic relationship with society in that it is shaped by society as much as it shapes[…]

The Great Sphinx of Giza / Photo by MusikAnimal, Wikimedia Commons An exclusive title held only by the highest officials of the royal Egyptian court going back to at least early dynastic times. By (left-to-right) Dr. Manu Seyfzadeh, Dr. Robert M. Schoch, and Robert Bauval / 07.21.2017 Seyfzadeh: Independent Researcher Schoch: Associate Professor[…]

Birds and Flowers of Spring and Summer, by Kano Eino / Suntory Museum of Art, via Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Brian W. Platt Associate Professor of History George Mason University Soon after overthrowing the Tokugawa government in 1868, the new Meiji leaders set out ambitiously to build a modern nation-state. Among the earliest and most radical[…]

In the 19th century, federal policy shifted from a policy of extermination and displacement to assimilation. The passage of the Civilization Fund Act in 1819 allocated federal funds directly to education for the purpose of assimilation, and that led to the formation of many government-run boarding schools. / Photo by Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images. More than a century ago, the last[…]

Linda Brown Smith, right, and her two children in their Topeka, KS home 1974. AP While Linda Brown is being celebrated for her role in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case that desegregated US schools, a researcher says the story behind the case is more complex. By Dr. Charise Cheney / 03.30.2018 Associate Professor[…]

Can Twitter improve students’ engagement with course materials? Lauren Ann JImerson, Author provided By Lauren Jimerson / 09.22.2015 PhD Candidate in Art History Rutgers University When I was a college student, art history courses revolved around a 1960s-era carousel slide projector. Its monotonous humming and clicking in the darkened lecture hall often put my classmates to sleep.[…]

Students at Graduation/ Photo by Kit from Pittsburgh, Creative Commons By Dr. Sheldon M. Stern / 03.04.2018 Historian I grew up in a tough, working class neighborhood in Brooklyn. My parents had both come to the US in the early 1920s (just before the immigration restriction laws of 1924). My father did piecework in a[…]

Photo by nerdmeister®, Flickr, Creative Commons By Dr. Kevin Gannon / 01.16.2018 Professor of History Director, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Grand View University Every few months, higher education is witness to a curious ritual where one’s stance on particular pedagogical issues assumes an affect of Calvinist-style salvation or damnation. You can set your[…]

A family visiting the Getty Villa explores ancient art, history, and mythology through frescoes from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum. The influence of classical mythology lives on in our culture. Here are some tips for exploring this subject with kids. By Erin Branham / 10.07.2012 Education Specialist for Family Programs Getty Villa Teaching kids[…]

Isaac Newton’s portrait. What can students learn from his life? Alessandro Grussu, Creative Commons By Dr. Muhammad H. Zaman / 08.15.2016 HHMI Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health Boston University Lately, there has been a lot of discussion highlighting the need for incorporating social sciences in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines in order to foster[…]

History is not just a few facts to be memorized. Greg Wass/Flickr, Creative Commons By Dr. Ben Keppel / 02.26.2015 Associate Professor of History University of Oklahoma The decision of a committee of the Oklahoma legislature, by a vote of 11-4, to stop funding for Advanced Placement History classes is national news. Whether this committee vote will actually[…]

Daniel Day-Lewis won the 2012 Academy Award for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. Is Spielberg’s historical drama a good way to learn about the 16th U.S. president? Touchstone Pictures By Dr. Scott Alan Metzger / 05.16.2017 Assistant Professor of Education Pennsylvania State University Hollywood loves history. At last year’s Academy Awards, three nominees for Best Picture (“Fences,”[…]

By Dr. Patricia A. Alexander and Lauren M. Singer Trakhman / 10.03.2017 Alexander: Professor of Psychology Trakhman: PhD Candidate in Educational Psychology University of Maryland Today’s students see themselves as digital natives, the first generation to grow up surrounded by technology like smartphones, tablets and e-readers. Teachers, parents and policymakers certainly acknowledge the growing influence[…]

Photo by Roxyuru / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Sandra Stotsky / 12.24.2017 Professor Emerita of Education Reform University of Arkansas For an October 2017 conference sponsored by an affiliate of the California Association of Teachers of English, I was invited to give an informal talk on a chapter in my book, The Death and Resurrection of a Coherent[…]

The installation outside Gund Hall responds to real-time data, ranging from emojis used on social media to police radio dispatches. By Travis Dagenais / 12.06.2017 Photos by Justin Knight GSD professor’s sculpture translates real-time data into soundscapes As visitors to the Graduate School of Design’s (GSD) Gund Hall approach the puzzling blanket of concrete installed[…]

Locking articles away behind a paywall stifles access. Elizabeth, CC BY-NC-ND By Dr. Patrick Burns / 11.05.2017 Dean of Libraries Vice President for Information Technology Colorado State University Imagine a researcher working under deadline on a funding proposal for a new project. This is the day she’s dedicated to literature review – pulling examples from existing research[…]

Maddox and his brother in their apartment in Lowell, Massachusetts. / Photo by Heidi Shin By Heidi Shin / 11.14.2017 When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, the regime carried out a genocide that killed over 1.5 million people and specifically targeted nearly all of the country’s artists and musicians. Very few survived. After[…]

Can you cut it in this math problem? Sergey Lapin By Dr. Jennifer Ruef / 09.11.2017 Assistant Professor of Education Studies University of Oregon Many people find mathematics daunting. If true, this piece is for you. If not, this piece is still for you. What do you think of when you think about mathematics? Perhaps you[…]

School of Athens fresco, by Raphael, c.1510 / Apostolic Palace, Vatican City Lecture by Dr. Eleanor Dickey at Barnard’s Inn Hall / 05.15.2014 Professor of Classics Reading University Agesilaus and Pharnabazus. Elementary history of Greece, made up principally of stories about persons, giving at the same time a clear idea of the most important events[…]

In an effort to ease the intense pressure that its students face in China’s notoriously rigid exam-based education system, a school in Nanjing has created a “grade bank” that lets students “borrow” grades so that they can pass exams, and then repay them in subsequent tests. Oh man, I wish we had something like this when I[…]

Image: Pixabay, edited by Kevin Rothrock By Kevin Rothrock / 01.06.2017 Today you can find dozens of music videos shared on YouTube by a channel called “Kids Learning Tube,” where an anonymous American man has spent the past two years uploading educational singing cartoons. This might not sound like much, but the channel now has[…]

By Allen Mikaelian / 01.04.2017 Adjunct Professor of History American University The world has much bigger problems, but this still bothers me. Last time I looked at this data I wasn’t surprised to see a decline; I was surprised at how large it was. But maybe that 9 percent drop in history majors between 2013[…]

By Dr. Michelle Orihel / 11.29.2016 Assistant Professor of History Southern Utah University Last spring, I blogged about how I used the song “Farmer Refuted” from Hamilton: An American Musical to teach about the pamphlet wars of the American Revolution.[1] But, that’s not the only song about pamphlets in the musical. There’s also “The Reynolds[…]

By Dr. Tom Stafford / 10.07.2016 Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science University of Sheffield Putting a student at the centre of their own learning seems like fundamental pedagogy. The Constructivist approach to education emphasises the need for knowledge to reassembled in the mind of the learner, and the related impossibility of its direct transmission[…]